"I had yester-even a presentiment"

[muckefuck]

I've found other European languages much more scrupulous about distinguishing "last night" from "yesterday evening" than English. In German and French, for instance, "night" begins after you've laid yourself down to sleep; anything which happens before then occurs during the "evening". Perhaps the relative length of the expression is to blame. "Yesterday evening"--even if you need only two syllables for the second word--is a mouthful compared to "gestern Abend", let alone "hier soir". And why is that anyway? Why did our ancestors feel a need to lengthen "yester" to "yesterday" and "even" to "evening"? Who can think of contexts where "even" would be truly ambiguous in this usage, let alone "yester"?

Speaking these other languages has made me more prone to port over the distinction (much as I now carefully distinguish "friends" from "acquaintances" due to German) and I'm getting tired of that six-syllable monster. So I'm resurrecting "yestere'en". Feel free to emulate my commendable commitment to economy and accuracy.

Comments

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

You reminded me of this thing most of my South Asian Indian co-workers do: they never use "this" in their construction of talking about today's morning/evening. We run loads starting at 8pm and running until 5am, so we cross the date boundary all the time in conversation. So "in the evening" is never specific enough for us. But where I'd say "this evening, around X o'clock," my co-workers are always saying "today evening, after X P.M." In the afternoon, they'll say "today morning" instead of "earlier today" or "this morning", and I've even heard "no, tomorrow afternoon, not today afternoon" with no pause between "after" and "noon." It makes good phrase construction sense, since there's "yesterday afternoon" and "tomorrow morning", but it always catches my ear. That, and them always wishing "many happy returns on the day" instead of just "many happy returns."

It'd be great for folks like me if there was a specific term for the hours after midnight to sun-up in relation to the prior weekday. We're always talking about Thursday night's load, but then confuse folks when we have to talk about the issue we had with it Friday morning.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

In the TWS/Maestro software we use, anything that fails with an error "Abnormally Ended", abbreviated "ABEND". I guess "FAIL" or "ERROR" were downers. Anyway, it means all the folks here that use the software have picked up the habit of taking about jobs that will "Abend" or have "Abended." I call the night shift folks all the time and say things like "This evening look out for an Abend."

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Yester! Natalie went through a phase a few years ago of saying things like "yesterweek" and "yesternight". I loved it, but I alone could not make it stick.

As economical as "yestere'en" is, I don't think I could actually say it out loud. "Yestereve"?

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you say "Yestereen" out loud, and it sounds like a mouthwash or a Doctor Who villain race. Which, given the NewWho's trend towards beasties like the Weeping Angels and the Silence, may already have a spec script with 'em in it.

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

In German and French, for instance, "night" begins after you've laid yourself down to sleep; anything which happens before then occurs during the "evening".

That only works if you have a regular sleep schedule though. ;) 2 am is night no matter when you go to bed.